4 Brilliant ways stores trick you into spending money.

Don't be fooled into leaving with less money in your pocket.

The in-store credit card

 Store branded credit cards can come with some pretty great rewards. However, you will only see the benefits if you pay off the balance at the end of each month. One of the best is the target red card or lowes. Each of these cards come with an automatic 5% savings in store. Its hard to argue that benefit, but at 22.90% APR, youre easly spending way more then the 5% savings if you keep a running balance. Heres the math: you buy something for $100, use your target card and save 5%, so that $100 item becomes $95.00. Great! you spent 95.00. But wait! Keep a $100 balance on the card throughout the year and now you spent $122.90 for the same item.

The Appetizer

Initially developed by master chef Sir William J. Appetizerington in the 13th century. Just kidding about the name, but the goal was to give people tiny portions first, so they would be ravenously hungry by the time they ate. This was to make their meal offerings seem all that more delicious. Flash forward a couple of hundred years and now it's become a marketing trick to get patrons of restaurants to buy more of their product. Food.

The irony here is that the "appetizers" sometimes pack almost as much as your main course and is most certainly not part of a well rounded meal. What a brilliant mind trick it is though. Probably developed in a board room, it's more effective in getting you to empty your wallet then deserts because at the end of your meal when desert is ordered, you've already eaten. The trick here is to get you to order before you eat when you're at your hungriest. Add a yummy name like "tiki taco minis" or "savory mozzarella sticks" and resistance is almost futile. Let's face it though. You're buying two meals and doubling your bill.